


carry on, lance sanchez

by 13warbob



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), F/F, F/M, Gay Keith (Voltron), M/M, Oblivious Lance (Voltron), Pining Keith (Voltron), Shiro is Keith’s Uncle (Voltron), Slow Burn, lance and keith are roommates (oh my god they were roommates)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-26 02:25:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14990735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13warbob/pseuds/13warbob
Summary: Lance Sanchez is the worst Chosen One who’s ever been chosen.At least, that’s what his roommate, Keith, says. And Keith might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he’s probably right.Half the time Lance can’t even make his wand work, and the other half, he sets something on fire. His mentor is avoiding him, his girlfriend has broken up with him, and there’s a magic-eating monster running around wearing Lance’s face. Keith would be having a field day with all of this, if he were here - it’s their last year at the Altea School of Magicks, and Lance’s infuriating rival didn’t even bother to turn up.





	carry on, lance sanchez

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this bc i realised how similar simon and baz’s dynamic and keith and lance’s dynamics were
> 
> also i wanted to write keith pining over lance while lance has no idea he has a crush on him in return
> 
> i do not own voltron or carry on if i did klance would be canon
> 
> hopefully this will be updated fairly soon!

Lance walked to the bus stop by himself.

There was always a fuss over his paperwork when he left. All summer long, they weren’t even allowed to walk to the Tesco on the corner without a chaperone and verbal permission from the Queen - then, in the autumn, he just signed himself out of the children’s home and went.

‘He goes to a special school,’ one of the office ladies explained to the other when he left. They were sitting in a Plexiglass box and he slid his papers back to her through a slot in the wall. ‘It’s a school for dire offenders,’ she whispered.

The other woman didn’t even look up.

It was like that every September, even though Lance was never in the same home twice.

The Mage has fetched him for school himself the first time, when he was 11. But the next year, he’d told him he could make it to Altea on his own. _You’ve slain a dragon, Lance,_ he’d said _. Surely you can manage a long walk and a few buses._

Lance hadn’t meant to slay that dragon. It wouldn’t have hurt him, he didn’t think.

He still dreamt about it sometimes. The way the fire consumed it from the inside out, like a cigarette burn eating a piece of paper.

He got to the bus station, then ate a mint Aero while he waited for his first bus. There’s another bus after that. Then a train.

Once he was settled on the train, he tried to sleep with his bag in his lap and his feet propped up on the seat across from him - but a man a few rows back wouldn’t stop watching him. He could feel his eyes brawling up the back of his neck.

He could have just been a pervert. Or police.

Or he could have been a bonety hunter who knew about one of the prices on his head.

_It’s bounty hunter,_ he’d said to Pidge the first time they they’d fought one.

_No_ , Pidge had replied, _it’s bonety hunter. Short for bone-teeth. That’s what they get to keep if they catch you._

Lance changed carriages and didn’t bother trying to sleep again. The closer he got to Altea, the more restless he felt. Every year, he thought about jumping from the train and spelling himself the rest of the way to school, even if it would put him in a coma.

He could have cast a Hurry up on the train, but that was a chancey spell at the best of times, and his first few spells of the school year were always especially dicey. He was supposed to practice during the summer - small, predictable spells when no one was looking. Like turning on night lights. Or changing apples to oranges.

_Spell your buttons and your laces closed_ , Mr Smythe had suggested. _That sort of thing._

_I only ever wear one button_ , Lance had told him, then blushed when he looked down at his jeans.

_Then use your magic for household chores_ , he’d said. _Wash the dishes. Polish the silver._

He didn’t bother telling Mr Smythe that his summer meals were served on disposable palates and that he ate with plastic cutlery - forks and spoons, never knives.

He also hadn’t bothered to practise his magic that summer.

It was boring. And pointless. And it wasn’t like it helped. Practicing didn’t make him a better magician; it just set him off...

Nobody knew why his magic was the way it was. Why it goes off like a bomb instead of flowing through him like a fucking stream or however it works for everyone else.

_I don’t know_ , Pidge had said when he asked her how magic felt for her. _I suppose it feels like a well inside me. So deep that I can’t see or even imagine the bottom. But instead of sending down buckets, I just think about drawing it up. And then it’s there for me - as much as I need, as long as I stay focused._

Pidge always stayed focused. Plus, she’s powerful.

Allura wasn’t. Not as, anyway. And Allura didn’t like to talk about her magic.

But once, at Christmas, he had kept Allura up until she was tired and stupid, and she’d told him that casting a spell felt like flexing a muscle and keeping it flexed. _Like croisé devant_ , she’d said. _You know?_

Lance had shaken his head.

She had been lying on a wolfskin rug in front of the fire, all curled up like a pretty kitten. _It’s ballet_ , she’d said. _It’s like I just hold position for as long as I can._

Keith had told him that for him, it was like lighting a match. Or pulling a trigger.

He hadn’t meant to tell him that. It had been when they were fighting the chimera in the woods during their fifth year. It had had them cornered, and Keith hadn’t been powerful enough to fight it alone.

The Mage wasn’t powerful enough to fight a chimera alone.

_Do it, Sanchez!_ Keith had shouted at him. _Do it. Fucking unleash. Now._

_I can’t_ , Lance had tried to tell him. _It doesn’t work like that_.

_It bloody well does._

_I can’t just turn it on_ , he’d said.

_Try_.

_I can’t, damn it_. He had been waving his sword around - he’d been pretty good with a sword already at fifteen - but the chimera hadn’t been corporeal. Which was Lance’s rough luck, pretty much always. As soon as you start carrying a sword around, all your enemies turn out mist and gossamer.

_Close your eyes and light a match_ , Keith had told him. They had both been trying to hide behind a rock. Keith was casting spells one after the other, he was practically singing them.

_What?_

_That’s what my mother used to say_ , Keith had said. _Light a match inside your heart, then blow on the tinder._

It was always fire with Keith. Lance couldn’t believe he hadn’t incinerated him yet. Or burned him at the stake.

He used to like to threaten him with a Viking’s funeral, back when they were third years. _Do you know what that is, Sanchez? A flaming pyre, set adrift on the sea. We could do yours in Blackpool, so all your chavvy Normal friends can come._

_Sod off,_ Lance would say, and try to ignore him.

He’d never even had any Normal friends, chavvy or otherwise.

Everyone in the Normal world steered clear of him if they could. Pidge says they sense his power and instinctively shy away. Like dogs who won’t make eye contact with their masters.

Not that Lance was anyone’s master - that’s not what he meant.

Anyways, it worked the opposite with magicians. They love the smell of magic. He had to try hard to make them hate him.

Unless they were Keith. He was immune. Maybe he’d built up a tolerance to Lance’s magic, since he’d shared a room with him for seven years.

That night when they were fighting the chimera, Keith kept yelling at him until he went off.

They’d both woken up a few hours later in a blackened pit. The boulder they’d been hiding behind was dust, and the chimera was vapour. Or maybe it was just gone.

Keith was sure he’d signed off his eyebrows, but he’d looked just fine to Lance - not a hair out of place in his stupid mullet,

Typical.


End file.
